


There are 10 kinds of people

by Weisse_Rose



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF John, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Inexperienced Sherlock, M/M, Protective John, Virgin Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-14 07:16:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1257616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weisse_Rose/pseuds/Weisse_Rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Sherlock Holmes is a genius hacker. He stumbles upon some dangerous information and his (over)protective brother hires a bodyguard to keep him safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is being beta'd & britpicked by the amazing [Yoite](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Yoite).

Sherlock stared broodingly at the computer screen in front of him. He hated Fridays. It was the one day in the week he had agreed to work in the office instead of doing his work from home. His team lead had insisted that he needed to 'network with his peers' and that it would be a 'valuable asset to his co-workers' if they could approach him. Sherlock considered it a waste of his time.

Thankfully, most of his colleagues got the message quite quickly and stopped talking to him after a few attempts. The majority did not have a very outgoing personality to begin with and could easily be discouraged with a well-timed glare. 

However, there seemed to be some people who were either too dim-witted or uncaring to heed the warning signs. Sherlock looked up and saw one of them approaching him. He stared him down with the most intimidating glare he could muster, the one which made some of his more introvert colleagues want to roll up in a tiny ball on the floor. Sherlock seldom made use of it, but he could be quite the menacing figure if he wanted to.

“Hey”, his colleague opened lamely. Sherlock rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“I'm busy.”

“You're always busy.”

“So it appears.” Sherlock had not raised his eyes from the screen for the entirety of their conversation and continued typing. He was wondering if there was another, even less subtle, way to get the message of 'Leave me alone' across to this moron.

“Um, so I was wondering if you had a chance to look over my commit from yesterday. I think it's all fine, but Greg insisted that you check it.”

Sherlock finally turned his eyes away from the screen, gave his colleague another intense glare and noted with satisfaction that he actually flinched.

“Ah yes. I reverted that garbage.”

“You – what?”

“It was easier to rewrite it myself from scratch than to try and wrap my head around your inferior thinking process. Honestly, what goes on in that funny little brain of yours?”

The other man looked flustered, then angry.  
“I coded a perfectly fine solution to the issue. Just because you think your stuff is better doesn't give you the right-”

Sherlock interrupted him, his voice patronizing. “You wrote a barely acceptable solution to the current state of affairs. Once we went from 7 digit Id’s to 8 digit Id’s, your piece of code would have crashed and burned. But did you even consider that? No, because you do not think further than the tip of your own nose. I honestly wonder how you people even find your way to work, much less manage to use a computer.”

Sherlock could see a flash of doubt cross the other man's face, but it quickly returned to anger.

“That won't happen for at least another three years. Who cares?”

Sherlock gave a sigh. Apes, the lot of them. He picked up his laptop and retreated to one of the meeting rooms without sparing his colleague another look, let alone a reply.

It sometimes saddened him to think of his code in the hands of these butchers. They cut pieces away without considering the whole. To him, the code he wrote was a piece of art, a thing of beauty. To them it was merely a tool to achieve whatever quarterly bonus goal had been set for them. 

The only time when people would actually approach him was to consult his expertise on a difficult problem they were trying to solve. He had earned a reputation for his personality, but he also had a reputation for his code.

Many people would consider it a hassle to be the go-to guy for complex issues. To Sherlock, it was the main reason why he had not quit this decidedly dull job yet. Most of the problems were barely worth his time, he could solve them within a day, sometimes within an hour. But from time to time an exciting challenge would come along and he would spend days on end brooding over the problem, barely sleeping or eating, until he had cracked it.

To him, it was not simply a matter of solving the problem in some way and be done with it. There were many ways to approach any given issue and he aspired to always find the most elegant solution. It was not enough to mash the pieces together somehow, he had to find the perfect answer which made everything fall into place.

\---------------------------------------------

Sherlock rubbed his hands over his eyes. They were starting to hurt from staring at the screen to long. He looked up to the clock on the meeting room wall and was surprised to see that it was 9 PM. He hadn't even noticed the passing of time while he was engrossed in his work. He also had skipped lunch again, as usual.

Well, at least nobody had bothered him for the rest of the day, which was a small blessing he was grateful for. There was only so much stupidity he could endure in a day. If it were up to him, he would happily spend all his time in the confines of Baker Street. There, he could focus on the things that really mattered and reduce his contact with other human beings to the occasional food delivery guy. 

If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he sometimes fantasized what it would be like to leave his body behind and be only limited by the extend of his imagination. Downloading a consciousness into a computer was merely Science Fiction at this point, but if they ever developed the technology, Sherlock Holmes would be first in line.

With a sigh, he picked up his laptop and went home.

\---------------------------------------------

He walked into his flat and threw the Belstaff coat and his suit jacket over the closest arm chair. At home, he normally worked in silk pyjamas and maybe a robe. On Fridays, he had conducted multivariate testing and found that the full suit, combined with looking angry and preoccupied, kept the most people off his back.

One of his first attempts had been a T-shirt with the words “Leave me alone” written on the front and back. It had the opposite effect to what he had envisioned. A lot more people approached him, some of them laughing and commenting on his shirt. People didn't get the simplest messages.

He sat down on the couch with a sigh and immediately opened his laptop again. The last few weeks, he had been engrossed in a particularly interesting puzzle. While his work helped him pay the rent and offered the occasional challenging distraction, most of his time was actually spent on other pursuits. He had it down to an art to break into secure networks and leave no traces behind. His brother Mycroft had actually possessed the audacity to forbid him this kind of activity, but since Sherlock was very careful, he didn't have any proof.

He broke into the most secure and dangerous places not because the information was of particular interest to him, but because they posed the biggest challenge. He actually never made any copies of the things he uncovered. Merely breaking open the lock and sneaking out undetected was enough for him. He regarded it as a sport and he was very good at it.

This particular server had turned out to be a challenge though. Sherlock had always held the belief that you could tell a lot about a man just from looking at his code. And this security net had clearly been woven by a genius. Maybe a man almost as clever as himself. Sherlock had been intrigued and, if he was honest with himself, felt a bit intimidated when he had first discovered it. However, he had never backed down from a challenge and he would crack this one as well, given time. After all, he had solved every puzzle he had set his mind to so far and never been caught. This one would be no different.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock's focus was broken for the third time by a loud noise. Irritated, he realized that it was his rumbling stomach. Reluctantly, he put his laptop down and looked around. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten or when exactly it had gotten dark outside again.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes and stood up wearily. He was so close to cracking this puzzle, it pained him to let it go just to give in to the demands of his body. Sherlock stretched his long limbs and made his way over to the kitchen. The floor of the flat was littered with take-away food boxes and filthy clothes.

He opened the fridge door and stared at the contents. There was a small packet of mustard, two cans of Red Bull and a container with Chinese leftovers, which he didn't remember putting there. He took out the container, opened the lid and gave it a sniff. His stomach recoiled from the rotten smell and he retched. He put it back in the fridge with a frown. 

Sherlock decided that he didn't have time for the arduous process of picking a place to order from, finding his phone and talking to one of the monkeys on the other end. He grabbed one of the cans of Red Bull, opened it, took a big sip and went back to the couch.

\--------------------------------------------------

Mrs. Hudson almost fell out of her chair in surprise when she heard the yell from upstairs. Her tenant, while keeping his flat in a constant mess, was at least very quiet. There were never any visitors or any noise coming from his apartment. The only exception were visits from his brother Mycroft, which were usually short, but seemed to inevitably end with raised voices. On some of these occasions, she also heard things being thrown at the walls. 

She decided to go upstairs and check on Sherlock. He was a little weird and didn't make it easy for people to get to know him, but she had always felt a certain fondness for him. She had never quite gotten used to cooking for one person only and it was a common occurrence for her to bring him leftovers. He would always be polite and thank her, but return his attention to that blasted machine almost immediately. She had never seen the appeal in them. The only thing they did was make her feel old and out of place in the modern world. Sherlock was too skinny and always had dark circles around his eyes. In her opinion, people were not meant to spend their lives looking at a computer screen every minute of every day. 

She had reached the door of the flat and was listening intently for any further noises. It sounded like Sherlock was pacing around inside. She knocked on the door and slowly opened it.

“Sherlock? I heard a strange yell from up here. Is everything alright?”

Sherlock turned towards her in mid-pace and gave her a manic grin. Then he all but ran up to her, grabbed her by the shoulders and twirled her around on the spot. It made her a little dizzy.

“I solved it!” His excitement was almost childlike and contagious. She couldn't help but smile at him.

“Solved what, dear?”

“The riddle, the puzzle, the impenetrable wall! I snuck in through the tiniest of loopholes. It was an almost perfect web, masterfully built, but I found the one imperfection and used it!”

Mrs. Hudson was wondering if maybe his solitary existence had finally gotten to him and he had lost his wits.

“That's nice, dear.” For the first time since entering the flat, she actually took the time to really look at Sherlock. The dark circles seemed to be even darker than usual and his already pale complexion was also whiter than usual. It looked as if his excitement was the only thing still keeping him on his feet.

“Listen, when was the last time you ate something? I was just about to start preparing dinner, do you want to join me downstairs?”

Sherlock looked confused for a moment, as if coming out of a trance. He threw a quick glance back to his laptop, but then appeared to remember how hungry he actually was.

“Thanks, that would be lovely. I'll be down in a minute.”

Mrs. Hudson smiled fondly at him. Her smile wavered a little when she caught sight of a pile of pizza boxes stacked in a corner. Some sort of blackish mould was spilling out of one of them, slowly spreading over the floor. She refrained from commenting on it this time and, with a sigh, returned to her own flat.

\--------------------------------------------------

Sherlock stumbled up the stairs to his own flat. He was convinced that he had never felt this tired in his whole life. To his embarrassment, he had almost fallen asleep right at the dinner table. Straight after wolfing down the meal as if he hadn't eaten in a week. Mrs. Hudson didn't seem to mind though, she seemed happy enough to have someone to share her meal with. She made him promise to go straight to bed afterwards though. Sherlock didn't think he had much choice in the matter anyway.

He dragged himself through the door and into his bedroom. With a thud, he landed flat on the bed and was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. He had made the effort to put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt instead of his pyjamas when going downstairs for the dinner. Due to this lucky coincidence, he happened to be fully dressed and wearing his shoes when he got abducted.

\--------------------------------------------------

Sherlock felt like he had just closed his eyes a minute ago when he was brutally yanked from his bed. By the time he managed to open his eyes, some sort of black cotton bag had been placed over his head and he couldn't see anything. His arms were forced behind his back and he felt the cold snap of closing handcuffs.

Sherlock was wide awake now. He hadn't put up any struggle so far due to his incapacitated condition and decided that it was probably best to continue like this. After all, there wasn't much he could do in his present situation anyway. He felt a strange mixture of terror and excitement. And a little twinge of disbelief. He couldn't actually be abducted from his flat in the middle of the night, could he? These kind of things didn't happen to real people.

He was roughly manhandled down the stairs and into the street. Sherlock heard a door being opened and was lifted inside what he suspected was the back of a van. During this entire episode, he hadn't heard his captors speak a single word. When the doors closed, he let out a shaky breath. He couldn't be sure, but it felt like he was alone in the back of the van. The van started moving and Sherlock was finally calm enough to think about his situation. Why was he being abducted? There was only one explanation that made sense to him. His brother. Clearly, these people wanted leverage over Mycroft, who played quite an influential role in the British government. This meant that they could intend to keep him locked up for a long time, but at least there wasn't an immediate threat to his life.

Belatedly, Sherlock realized that he should have been paying attention to the turns the van made in order to find out which route they were taking. He had an excellent memory and no doubt that he could have reconstructed the journey in his mind. Alas, they were already on their way now and Sherlock didn't remember which way they had turned out of Baker Street. He leaned against the cold side of the van and tried to make out any sounds on the outside. Sherlock was deep in concentration when the van was suddenly jolted to the side. Since he couldn't use his hands for balance, Sherlock was thrown helplessly forward and impacted painfully on the other side of the van. He could hear several gun shots being fired outside.

Somebody opened the doors and he was being yanked to his feet once more. Sherlock was getting pretty fed up with being tossed around like a sack of potatoes. Additionally, his head hurt and he could feel that the left side of the bag on his head was slowly getting damp with blood. He was guided into the back seat of a car, which promptly took off.

\--------------------------------------------------

Sherlock was being guided through a building. These were definitely not the goons who had picked him up from his flat, as he wasn't shoved around even once. They gently placed him on a chair. Before exiting the room, one of them removed the cotton bag from his head. Sherlock winced when it was drawn over his head wound. He blinked a few times and tried to get accustomed to the light again. Of course. He should have been expecting this.

“Brother mine, if I may be so blunt, you look like something the cat dragged in.” 

“Fitting, considering how you had me dragged in here.” Sherlock gave his brother one of his trademark glares, which left Mycroft, who had been exposed to them all his life, rather unimpressed.

“I didn't 'drag you in here' so much as rescue you from the back of a nondescript van. You're only here now thanks to the surveillance I had installed. The one you keep nagging me to have removed, I might add.”

Sherlock took a long look at his brother. Mycroft seemed to be his usual calm and collected self on the surface, but there was something strange in his expression. Had he actually been worried about him?

“Well, it was the least you could do.”

Mycroft raised one eyebrow at that remark and clasped his hands on the desk he was seated at.

“Was it now? Maybe I should have left you in this mess you got yourself into.”

“This mess I got myself into? This is all your fault! Clearly these people were after leverage on you!”

Mycroft gave him a look which clearly said that Sherlock was being slow and stupid. Sherlock had been on the receiving end of these looks all his life, and hated them with a passion. His headache was getting worse.

“You don't even know what you have done, do you?”

“Well, enlighten me with your superior intellect, dear brother.” Sherlock's words were dripping with sarcasm.

“From what I know so far, you broke into the network of one of the most dangerous organized crime groups of the decade at 18:42 hours yesterday evening and left a trail that could be traced back to you.”

Sherlock's eyes widened in shock. Nobody had ever been able to trace him before. He was excruciatingly careful. The signal was being rerouted through dozens of locations all over the world.

Mycroft took in his expression and shook his head. “So you really didn't know what you were doing. What am I to do with you, little brother?” Mycroft's tone was somewhere between concern and pity and it made Sherlock's stomach churn. He remained silent and met his brother's gaze.

“Did you at least extract some useful information on this little venture of yours?”

Sherlock shifted in his seat and looked down on the floor, unable to hold Mycroft's eyes any longer. A faint blush appeared on his cheeks.

“Please tell me you didn't break into one of the greatest information vaults of the modern age without at least having a look at the data?”

Sherlock sounded defensive even to his own ears. “I didn't really have time yet.”

Mycroft's eyebrows shot up almost to his receding hairline. Sherlock felt as if he were 10 years old again, getting caught by his older brother while doing something naughty.

“I don't have to justify myself to you.” Sherlock crossed his arms in front of him, painfully aware that he sounded like a sulking teenager.

He saw a flash of anger cross Mycroft's face, which was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. Mycroft's features softened and the anger was replaced by concern. Never a good sign.

“They know who you are now. You cannot return to Baker Street for some time and you will need protection. This one will not blow over as quickly as your other mishaps, brother mine.”

Sherlock put his head in his hands and winced when he inadvertently touched his head wound. This nightmare just wouldn't end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter we (and Sherlock) finally get to meet John Watson. Thanks for your patience and as always, any kind of feedback is very welcome!


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock wearily sat down on the bed and looked around. The hotel room was ordinary in every respect, right down to an organized cleanliness that made him feel terribly out of place. Everything was neat, the bed was made, a pile of towels stacked in the bathroom. 

Mycroft had left an hour ago with strict instructions not to leave this room under any circumstances. Sherlock’s request to get his laptop back had been met with a raised eyebrow and a stony expression. Apparently, his abductors took the time to thoroughly search his flat before grabbing him, collecting his laptop, his phone and his backups. All of it had now been confiscated by Mycroft. Sherlock would not be allowed near a computer in the foreseeable future if his brother got his way.

Sherlock stood up and tried the door knob. Locked. He was certain that a hotel room door which could be locked from the outside violated some sort of fire safety regulation. Frustrated, he sat back down on the bed.

His headache was only a faint pulsing thanks to a few paracetamol he had been given. The wound had been stitched and dressed as well. It would probably leave a scar.

Sherlock smirked. His brother was mistaken if he thought he could keep him from his work that easily. Sherlock folded his legs and rested his elbows on his knees. He folded the palms of his hands under his chin and closed his eyes, slowly exhaling and focussing.

Almost every piece of code he had ever written was stored away safely in his mind. He had deleted some of the minor files, but everything of consequence was saved, starting nearly from the time he had first gotten his hands on a computer. If he had ever mentioned it to another human being, he would have called it his mental hard drive. He used it to write and store code in his mind when, for whatever reason, he was kept from accessing a computer. 

Sherlock went down the pathways in his file storage until he stood in front of the wall of the security net he had broken through the day before. He examined the code carefully. The loophole he used to break in had seemed like a small flaw left due to negligence. A sloppy mistake in an otherwise perfect system. At the time, he thought he had gotten lucky, but now he wasn't so sure anymore. The longer he looked at it, the clearer the picture became. It was not a loophole at all, but a trap left for somebody like him. 

Sherlock could tell a lot about a man simply by looking at his code. Certainly more than from a conversation with him. A man's code could tell you if he was thorough or sloppy, focussed or easily distracted, an artist, a man of faith, a philosopher. Looking at the code of the security net now, a picture of a man formed in his mind. A ruthless and cunning man, with a cold and calculating intellect. He finally saw the loophole for what it really was. Not a hole in the net at all, not even a real trap. It was a message and he could read it with ease now that he had bothered to look properly. _Come and play_ , it said, _I'm bored._

\---------------------------------------------------------

“You know, this would all be a lot easier if you just accepted the position in our tech division.”

Sherlock slowly opened his eyes. Mycroft had taken one of the chairs next to the desk, placed it in front of him and sat down. Sherlock hadn't noticed any of this happening, nor had he heard his brother enter the room in the first place. He was vaguely aware that Mycroft had said something to him. Leaving the data storage of his mind always felt like coming out of a trance. Or a coma. How long had he been gone? It seemed to him as if Mycroft had only left a few hours ago, why was he back already?

“Hm?”

“Eloquently put, brother mine, as always. I was simply imploring to your common sense, even though I should know better by now. The British government could make use of your talents, rather than letting them go to waste as you do. My offer still stands.”

“Few things in live are certain, Mycroft, but I can tell you with absolute conviction that it will be a cold day in hell indeed when I become one of your lackeys.” Sherlock almost spat the last word.

For the first time since returning from his mental examination of the security web, Sherlock took a moment to look at his surroundings and realized that his brother had not come alone. There was another man with him, standing a few paces to the left of the chair and silently scrutinizing the room, apparently uninterested in their conversation. He was of short built and radiated a casual friendliness that was completely at odds with the people normally accompanying Mycroft. Sherlock frowned. 

“Unfortunately, dear brother, you cannot spend the rest of your life in this hotel room, as happy as that would make me. There are two conceivable possibilities. One, leave London-” “Never.” “Yes, I expected as much from you. Frankly, it amazes me how you can be so childish and stubborn in spite of your intellect.”

“Did I mishear or did you just compliment my intelligence?” Sherlock couldn't keep the smugness out of his voice. Mycroft rolled his eyes.

“Don't flatter yourself. The second option is, naturally, paid protection. I have surveillance on you, of course, but I can hardly justify permanently posting an agent just to keep an eye on you.”

“Good, I don't need a babysitter.” Sherlock bit his tongue to stop himself from saying more. He sounded like a petulant teenager again. How did Mycroft manage to bring out this side in him every single time?

Sherlock could see the exasperation breaking through Mycroft's carefully blank mask. “No, you don't. What you do need is a bodyguard, because you were stupid enough to draw the attention of very dangerous people. This is not a game, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked from Mycroft to the other man and back again. “What, him?” he asked incredulously. Sherlock had a very clear idea of what a bodyguard was supposed to look like. They were tall, muscular blokes, wearing suits and sunglasses. This man couldn't have been further from that picture. First off , he was too old. Secondly, he wore a plain jumper and simple jeans. His appearance called to mind the words homey and uncomplicated. To Sherlock, he looked like a dad who had just dropped one of his kids off for soccer practice. 

Surely, his brother could have found him a more suitable bodyguard. Sherlock gave the man another once-over and when he looked up at his eyes, the stranger was looking directly at him. Their gazes locked and behind the friendly and unimposing face, Sherlock saw something else entirely, steel and quiet strength. Sherlock felt a cold sensation running down his spine. He had to look away for a moment and when he turned his eyes back to him, the stranger was giving him a smile that was warm and honest, but at the same time had a decidedly predatory quality to it. To his utter and complete surprise, it gave him a feeling in his stomach that a more romantically inclined man might have described as butterflies. 

The man was still smiling when he stepped forward and extended his hand.

“John Watson. Pleased to meet you.” Sherlock took his hand. John's handshake was firm and confident. 

Mycroft looked from John to Sherlock and narrowed his eyes. 

“John will accompany you once you return to Baker Street and move in with you for some time, at least until we can be certain there is no imminent threat to your life. Don't let his appearance fool you. I can assure you he is more than capable at his job.” Mycroft stood up and took the umbrella he had hung on the back of the chair. “As much as I enjoy our little meetings, I'm afraid I'll have to get back to my real work now. Although making sure that you don't get yourself killed is already a full-time job.” 

Sherlock suppressed the urge to stick his tongue out at Mycroft's retreating back. Instead, he called after him. “When can I leave this dull place?”

Mycroft turned and smirked at him. “I'm afraid, for your own safety, you have to remain here for at least a week. I'll let you know when things have quieted down enough for you to return home.”

“Great, I'll just sit here and watch my brain rot away then.” Sherlock gave a long-suffering sigh and glared at Mycroft. 

“Oh, don't be such a drama queen. I'm sure you can find something to occupy your mind.” Mycroft gave John a short nod, then he was out the door.

John followed suit. Standing in the door, he turned around and looked at Sherlock again, from his bare feet up to his head, sizing him up, an unreadable expression on his face. Then he was out the door.

Sherlock was staring after him, his heart pounding in his chest, wondering what the hell had just happened to him.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock drummed his fingers nervously on the door handle of the black Sedan. He had spent two miserable weeks in the hotel room until his patience had snapped. He'd told Mycroft that either he would let him leave or he would make a run for it the next time somebody opened the door to bring him some – admittedly excellent – food.

Mycroft had conceded and agreed to his return to Baker Street. With conditions, of course. Constant video surveillance of the neighbourhood. No access to any device with the ability to connect to the internet in the foreseeable future. And, most severe, the constant presence of John Watson wherever he went.

Sherlock turned his head to look at the driver but quickly focussed his gaze back out the window. There was something eerie about his silent companion. Since he'd picked Sherlock up at the hotel, he had barely spoken two words to him. Even more disconcerting than his silence was the fact that every time Sherlock looked at him, he felt a return of the strange sensation of lightness in his stomach. Which was, quite frankly, ridiculous. He was not a 13-year-old girl with a crush, for God's sake.

The man was dressed once more in a plain jumper and simple trousers. Hardly appropriate attire for a bodyguard. His demeanour radiated the quiet focus of a man at work, taking his task very seriously. His blond hair was cropped short. He had a friendly face which wouldn't stand out in a crowd. Sherlock couldn't figure out for the life of him what attracted him to the man.

First of all, he didn't do attraction. There had been – thankfully few – instances when women had hit on him. God knew what led them to believe that would be a welcome action. He had shut them down with ferocity. Never in his life had he felt the need to pursue somebody himself. It seemed to him like a pointless exercise. Colossal amounts of time wasted in pursuit and, should it be successful, it was still most likely that the relationship would be short-lived. At the end of it nobody was any better off. Worse, probably. Pointless. People were illogical and unpredictable. Getting closely involved with one would simply be inviting disaster.

He shot another furtive glance at the driver. John looked back and their eyes locked for a moment. Sherlock thought that he saw a glint of amusement in the bodyguard's eyes. He was gripped by a sudden fear that the man somehow knew exactly what he had been thinking about. His eyes quickly darted out the window again.

Finally, the car ride ended and Sherlock quickly opened the door and jumped out. He had barely reached the front door when an agitated Mrs. Hudson appeared in the frame and drew him into a tight embrace. Sherlock awkwardly petted his landlady on the back. After a few moments, she made a visible effort to compose herself and withdrew from her tenant.

“My God, Sherlock, I was worried sick. What were you thinking, disappearing like that for weeks? And when I went to check on the apartment it looked like the place had been robbed. Robbed!”

She clutched her left hand over her heart in a dramatic gesture.

“I called the police and they said they couldn't give me any information on an ongoing investigation. What in God's name have you gotten yourself into?”

She took a breath and noticed John for the first time.

“Oh, hello. How rude of me. I'm Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock's landlady.”

John took her proffered hand and gave her a dazzling smile. It did funny things to Sherlock's stomach and he turned away quickly, disgusted with himself. This had to stop.

“John Watson. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm looking for a place to stay and Sherlock kindly offered the spare bedroom in his flat. Only if that's fine with you, of course.”

Sherlock had to admit that the bodyguard could be incredibly charming when he wanted to be. His impassive demeanour from the car ride had vanished completely. He radiated genuine happiness. Sherlock realized that he had been staring again and cursed inwardly. He would have to find a way to deal with this silly infatuation of his before it got out of hand.

Mrs. Hudson was taken aback for a moment but recovered quickly.

“Did he? How nice. Of course, that's fine with me. I'm afraid the place is a bit of a mess. I didn’t want to disturb any evidence.”

She gave Sherlock a mildly accusatory look while the three of them moved up the stairs.

Sherlock had a sudden flashback to the state of his apartment when he had been abducted. There had been litter on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink. And the mould on the pizza boxes had probably developed into a biohazard by now. He grimaced.

He held his breath and cautiously opened the door. Surprisingly, he was not greeted by the smell of decaying cheese. He turned to the side and saw that the pile of stacked pizza boxes had vanished in his absence. He raised an eyebrow at Mrs. Hudson.

“Oh, I doubt very much that there was any evidence hidden in there. Besides, if I hadn’t cleaned up at least a little in here, the place would be uninhabitable by now. You should really get a housekeeper, dear. I have things to do, you know.”

“Hm-hm.” Sherlock hadn’t really paid attention to her. He needed to check the hiding places of his backups and the second and third laptop. He ran off, leaving John and Mrs. Hudson standing in the doorway.

“So, how did you two meet?”

“I’m a friend of his brother.”

“Really? That’s nice.”

“You sound surprised.”

“Well, no offense, but Mycroft seems a bit – um – aloof and you strike me as more of a people person.”

“Well, it’s a funny story, really…” He was interrupted by an angry yell from the upstairs bedroom and then a whirlwind of angry Sherlock was flying past them into the kitchen.

Mrs. Hudson leaned over and whispered, "I hope you know what you've gotten yourself into, dear."

John gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm touched by your concern, but I can assure you, I know exactly what I've gotten myself into."


End file.
